India’s New Delhi shuts down as Covid-19 healthcare system reaches its limits

“I’m not saying that the system has collapsed, but that it has reached its limits,” he said.

The latest spate of cases has risen much faster than the country’s month-long surge last year, which has moved the country to the center of a pandemic that has killed at least three million people worldwide. India reported more than 200,000 new daily infections for five days in a row, with the number exceeding 270,000 on Monday.

On Monday, Delhi reported 25,463 infections in the past 24 hours, almost three times its largest daily count of 8,500 cases during a peak in November.

From 22:00 local time, shops and businesses were forced to close and people’s movements were restricted to access to and delivery of essential services. Some states, including Maharashtra, home of Mumbai’s financial capital, have limited the time and event to a maximum of four people. Shopping malls, restaurants, bars and places of worship have been closed in some places, but New Delhi is the first to reintroduce progress measures, such as those used last spring.

The rapidly rising numbers have also added urgency to one of the world’s largest vaccination campaigns. India administered 120 million doses to its population of nearly 1.4 billion. On Monday, the government said it would extend the vaccinations to everyone 18 and older from May 1. Doses were previously limited to those aged 45 years and older.

Public health experts have pointed to a combination of factors that are fueling the upsurge, including the spread of new variants that look more contagious than the original virus and the relaxation of precautions such as wearing masks and social distance because the number of cases in recent months. .

“We just let ourselves down,” said Dr. Amir Ullah Khan, research director of the Center for Development Policy and Practice, a think tank in Hyderabad, said.

Dr. Khan pointed to possible events in the expansion of the super-speaker, such as the recent political rallies held before the state elections in West Bengal, which drew tens of thousands of people who were mostly unmasked. Hundreds of thousands of religious Hindus gathered along the Ganges this month for the Kumbh Mela festival, during which people pray in the river to wash away their sins.

“No political leader has ever been seen wearing a mask or even talking about it,” said Dr. Khan said. The signal that went out was, ‘Everything’s over. We have recovered. ‘”

A number of highly contagious variants of the original coronavirus have also spread throughout the country. Last month, the Indian Ministry of Health said the varieties from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil were all found in collected samples, along with a new “double mutant variant” that may have originated in India.

By April, the British variant had become the dominant variant in the northern state of Punjab, public health experts said. The double mutant variant has taken over as the most common one in the state of Maharashtra.

Little is known so far about the double mutant variant, which gets its name because it has two mutations that are seen separately in other variants, but not in the same variant. The variant has been detected in 21 countries, according to researchers at four universities that follow viral lines. Genetic sequencing has caused cases in the US, Germany, Turkey and Nigeria, among others.

Doctors in India say they are seeing differences in the rate at which the infections are spreading throughout the population as well as in the ages of people arriving at hospitals while more young people are affected this time.

“This wave is huge,” says Dr. Parv Mittal, a doctor in a private hospital in Delhi. “In the past, the elderly became infected. This time it is the younger population that is at risk. ”

At the lure of Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan, Delhi’s largest state hospital, young adults and children arrive with high fever and severe body aches, and with varying levels of consciousness, dr. Suresh Kumar, the hospital’s medical supervisor, said.

Indian doctors and healthcare experts say they are working with huge gaps in their knowledge because the government is not doing enough to detect research on new variants.

“Clinically, we feel that the virus has become more contagious,” said Dr. Sunil Arora, who works in a state hospital, serves as general secretary of the Association of Physicians Association. “But we do not have sufficient data or evidence to determine the exact reasons for the current boom.”

Most hospitals in Delhi are under pressure from Covid-19 patients. More than 80% of the 19,322 Covid-19 beds in the city are occupied.

Mr. Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi, said the closure of the city was meant to suppress the transfer and give time to arrange more oxygen, medicine and fans.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has canceled a planned visit to India later this month due to the deteriorating situation there. The UK has said it will deny entry to anyone arriving from India from Friday, with exemptions for British and Irish citizens and people of any nationality who are long-term residents.

In the Delhi area of ​​Defense Colony, cars jammed the parking lot of a local market on Monday as people struggled to pick up supplies for home money. Lines were formed outside a local pharmacy and mom-and-pop grocery stores. Cars blocked the exit to the parking lots, with drivers blaring their horns.

After a nationwide depression hit India’s economy last year, the government has shown little appetite for repeating such comprehensive measures. Each state was instead left to find its own way of tackling outbreaks. After this new exclusion in Delhi, experts said that a cascade of other Indian states could follow.

“This will encourage other prime ministers to do the same,” he said. Khan said.

—Jason Douglas in London contributed to this article.

Write to Vibhuti Agarwal at [email protected] and Shan Li at [email protected]